


Staccato

by kindclaws



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, Eventual OFC/Mercer Frey, F/M, Thieves Guild - Freeform, Yeah you read that right just trust me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-02-11 22:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2084970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindclaws/pseuds/kindclaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To the one they call Michha Velaine-</p><p>There are rumours in Skyrim's underground of a Brotherhood assassin gone rogue, one not bound by rules and traditions. If these rumours have any inkling of truth, I might be interested in meeting with you. Spend the night of the 12th of Morning Star  in Nightgate Inn, and I will offer you the opportunity of your life. I have no way of assuring you this is not a trap, but I hope to see you nonetheless.</p><p>The choice is yours, Michha. You will know me if we meet, because I will ask you if you deal with death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rendezvous

 

**Evening of 12 th of Morning Star,**

**Nightgate Inn, The Pale, Skyrim.**

 

On a certain cold night in the dead of winter, a small figure struggles through waist-deep snow, panting with the effort of raising each foot high enough to make progress through the storm that batters Northern Skyrim. The snowfall has somewhat abated in the last few hours, allowing the lone traveller to look up at the sky through wet, heavy snowflakes, and see the borealis dancing far above - a celebration of colours absent from the bleak landscape below. When the figure reaches the lake - it has to be the right lake, even though only a small patch at the very centre of it isn't frozen and gleams liquid underneath the moonlight - they nearly leap and hoot with excitement. But they don't, not only from the exhaustion of travelling through the past day and night, but also from willpower.

Restraint, after all, is part of business. And they have not lived this long in the business by announcing their arrival with cheers and fanfare.

The figure trudges along the edge of the lake, their pace slightly quicker now that their destination is in sight - a small, forgotten inn, the lone sign of civilization for miles around. A wooden sign swings and creaks in the wind - Nightgate Inn. But checking the sign is a formality - the figure has been here before, for a very different, and yet very similar kind of business. They remember the resulting... _event_ quite clearly.

The porch is void of life, of course, because no sane person would be out in this weather, and the figure pauses halfway up the stairs to consider the untouched snow that covers the steps. No other footprints. Either they are early, or the mysterious individual who sent the letter has been here for hours.

The figure pulls down their hood under the safety of the roof that hangs over the porch, and a flickering lantern nearby illuminates soft, feminine features - a cute nose suggesting an age and maturity younger than reality, brown eyes with long, snow-dusted eyelashes, and twin scars cutting across dark lips that mar an otherwise attractive face. The only vaguely threatening detail about her is the dark skull painted on her face with broad, angry strokes. A monstrous steel greatsword hangs on her back, clearly far too large for her to wield properly. A stranger seeing the face of Michha Velaine for the first time would not think much of the young mix-breed girl. And that is exactly one of the things that has allowed her to survive time and time again.

She takes a deep breath and pushes open the door, unable to linger in the cold any longer no matter how nervous she may be. Immediately she is greeted by the wave of warm air that radiates from the firepit spanning the length of the inn's common room. She stamps her boots in the doorway, shaking off snow, and closes the door behind her.

Immediately the innkeeper descends upon her, grinning broadly through the thick beard that weighs down his jaw.

"Ah, hello there, traveller! Didn't think I'd have visitors on a night like this, but here you are! Come to the Nightgate for food or lodging?" he asks, seemingly delighted to have a patron.

She considers her dwindling savings, the difficult trip here, and the shiny gold septims enclosed with the mysterious letter. And she decides to treat herself to something other than cold rations and stale bread.

"Both, please," Michha responds lowly. If the innkeeper finds her strange, he says nothing of the sort, and only directs her to sit down at a table while he brings her a meal. Michha declines a place by the Nord man in a tattered tunic who appears to be only a few tankards away from drunken sleep, and subtly tugs on the innkeeper's sleeve.

"Hadring, you can call me," he says, beaming at her. "And you? How can I help you, lass?"

"Please sir," Michha says, putting on a winning smile to match his own and purposefully ignoring his first question. "Tell me about your inn. Do you have patrons often?"

The old man takes the bait, his eyes lighting up when she asks about the inn.

"We used to. This old place you see around you? Been here forever. Built by my great grandda. Run by him, then all the way up the line to me. In the day, we served adventurers by the dozen. Since the war's started..." Hadring says, shaking his bearded head sadly. "Not so much. Just ol' Fultheim over there, drinking away a lifetime of bad memories, and you. Used to have a nice Orc man staying in the cellar room, till one day he never came up for breakfast and I found him lodged in one of the wine barrels with his throat slit. A shame, that."

"A damn shame," Michha echoes, lifting a tankard of mead up to her lips and pretending to drink to hide a tiny smile. "So no other visitors?"

Hadring shakes his head with a tut and excuses himself. Michha picks at her food, finding her anxiety to be greater than her hunger. The smoked slaughterfish is delicious, doused in an array of spices that Michha thinks might have come from the reserves of the 'nice Orc man' who died in the cellar, but her tongue is dry and she can hardly taste it. After several minutes of solitude, she reaches inside her plainsclothes for the letter hidden inside deadly leather, though by now she's read the worn scrap of paper so many times that when she closes her eyes at night she can see the elegant script burned into the back of her eyelids.

There is no signature, only a tiny drawing of a dagger enclosed in a circle. Michha has pondered its meaning for weeks, even broken into the libraries of several court wizards to scour dusty tomes for an explanation. And so she has come here, partially because of curiosity, partially from desperation.

She cuts her slaughterfish into smaller and smaller bits, trying to draw the meal out longer to give the visitor more time to arrive, and when it is all gone and she finds only tarnished metal at the bottom of her tankard, she has to reluctantly accept that no one is meeting her tonight.

Michha pushes her plate away and slumps on the table with a quiet groan, taking up a position not unlike that of the drunkard across the room.

There was enough gold in the package from the courier to last her another two weeks, maybe three if she's smart and doesn't spend the majority of it in one night like she just has. Goodbye warm meals, goodbye warm beds. Together with what remains of her previous savings, she might be able to make it as far as Solitude, though the city is a nightmare of darkened alleys and obscure courtyards and multiple entrances. It's not an option she likes, but if she sticks to the coast and does some odd jobs, she might be able to buy passage on a ship to Daggerfall, beg for forgiveness at her father's feet...

Or she would, if she had enough money. But she doesn't, and she can't stay in one place long enough to secure a decent paying job. She may as well be crippled, reduced to fleeing across Skyrim, always terrified, always wondering when she'll feel a dagger between her shoulderblades.

"All right there, lass?"

She feels Hadring's hand on her head and flinches violently even though she knows it's meant to be a comforting gesture. He removes it quickly and she manages to relax as she sits up and leans away from him.

"My apologies, you looked like you weren't feeling very well," the innkeeper says. His eyes are gentle and simple. This is a man who has never wished harm on anyone else, and Michha takes a moment to hope she won't have to kill him in the morning to hide her tracks.

"It's the trip, I'm afraid," Michha says, slumping her shoulders and letting her eyelids droop sleepily. Her exhaustion is more genuine than she'd like, but the act gains her a sympathetic smile and an offered arm. She stands and takes Hadring's elbow, letting him lead her to a spare room. As he fumbles with the lantern on her bedside table, she discretely walks around the tiny room, seeking out its angles and weaknesses. It is a habit she doesn't think she will ever be able to break.

"Thank you, Hadring," Michha says as the old innkeeper brings her a spare quilt to ward off the cold. "Please... If anyone arrives tonight, asking for me... Could you wake me, no matter what the hour?"

Hadring puts his hands on his hips and frowns in the direction of the door. 

"I'll do that, lass, but in this weather, it's not likely anyone will be coming for days."

"...I know," Michha says quietly, sitting on the bed with her head bowed forward. Disappointment weighs down on her shoulders like a physical weight.

"Were you expecting someone?" Hadring asks. Michha shrugs one shoulder despondently. 

"No, not really," she says. The old innkeeper departs with a tut, telling her to wake him if she has need of anything in the night. Michha only smiles half-heartedly, thinking that what she needs probably amounts to his entire life savings. She is no stranger to theft, but she cannot bring herself to rob a man's entire livelihood.

She extinguishes the lantern and lays on the bed without undressing. The greatsword she lays beside her like a sleeping companion, worthy of taking up half the bed. Feeling cold, she slips her hands into her sleeves and finds comfort in the texture of the worn leather that her inconspicuous plainclothes hide. Her hands silently find all of her daggers - _left forearm, right forearm, back of right shoulder, lower right ribcage, left and right side hips, left thigh, right calf, left ankle_ \- and she drifts asleep while reciting the list, over and over again.

She never even hears the woman. One moment she is asleep, alone in her bed, and the next moment, there is a heavy weight on her chest, pinning her down, and slanted lilac eyes blink at her in the darkness. Michha struggles, but she is just a small girl and the woman is prepared for every trick she tries to pull. Bony fingers fix around Michha's throat and hold her in place. The greatsword falls off the edge of the bed, dislodged by the motion of their struggles, but a thick sheepskin rug muffles any clatter it might have made in falling to the floor. 

When she has exhausted herself trying to flee, the woman relaxes her death grip on Michha's neck.

"Calm yourself, child," the woman says. "Can you stop trying to kill me so we can talk?"

"You're talking! Get - _off!_ " Michha whispers angrily, and this time when she bucks her hips to dislodge the attacker, the woman rolls off silently and crouches on the floor. Michha draws her favourite dagger - _left forearm_ \- and shoots out a hand to grasp the cold lantern on the bedside table. Without looking away from the silent woman, she summons a tiny flame and lights the candle inside so she can see her nighttime visitor better.

"Am I who you expected, Michha?" the woman asks, giving Michha a slow, unnerving smile. Her eyes gleam purple in the dim light, the only part of her that seems to react at all the flame. "I wanted to speak earlier, but couldn't find a way to approach you. I was admiring your warpaint - it's quite an impressive work. Do you deal with death often?"

_You will know me if we meet, because I will ask you if you deal with death._

Michha slowly drops the point of her dagger, appraising the stranger with new eyes. The Dunmer woman standing by the door is clothed in the darkest armour she has ever seen, so dark that it seems to deflect the lantern's weak flame. If she weren't in perfect control of her senses, she might even swear wisps of black smoke drift from the woman, cloaking her in pure shadow. 

"Yes," Michha says quietly, trying not to let her face betray the flutter of nervousness in her chest. "I do."

"Then I'm pleased to have made your acquaintance. I had hoped we'd be able to take our time talking here, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. A friend of yours is making their way here from Dawnstar, and you will not want to be here when they arrive. Come with me, child, and I will tell you why I've been looking for someone like you for a long, long time."

It is hardly wise of Michha to place any trust in a stranger that just strangled her in the middle of the night, but she does not have much of a choice. Gripped with cold fear at the mention of Dawnstar, she straps the greatsword to her back once more and follows.

 

 


	2. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deal is reached.

 

**Morning of 13 th of Morning Star,**

**The Pale - Eastmarch, Skyrim.**

 

The Dunmer woman has a horse stabled in a sheltered overhang behind the inn. It is a dappled gray mare that raises her head and knickers softly as they approach, nosing at the woman's hands as though seeking an apple or another treat. Thin tendrils of steam rise from the mare's nostrils and vanish into the cold night air. The woman laughs gently and gives the mare a quick pat before attending to her gear. She sees Michha cautiously reaching a hand out for the mare to sniff at, and smiles.

"Her name is Delvin," she says. "She has served me well since I returned to Skyrim."

"Delvin doesn't seem like horse's name, or a girl's for that matter," Michha says, raising an auburn eyebrow. The Dunmer woman only busies herself with the last buckles on the saddle and hoists herself up on Delvin's back.

"It is the name of an old friend of mine who would appreciate the joke. Come up, Michha, and hold on tight. If luck is on our side, we may make it to Windhelm before anyone else looking for you does."

Michha doesn't need to be told twice. She has done little riding in her life, travelling mostly on foot and by carriage, but she clambers behind the woman and shifts in the saddle until she finds a relatively comfortable position. For a moment she has the absurd notion that the woman is made purely of the smoke that wafts off her body in tiny dark wisps, but as it turns out the woman's perfectly corporeal underneath the darkness. That's just fine by Michha. In this cold, someone else's body heat is appreciated. There is no way for Michha to sit except pressed up against her back with her thighs spread, and the strangely intimate position makes her nervous. But although she's had plenty of opportunities, the older woman hasn't tried to kill her yet. Well, not seriously. Michha forces herself to breathe steadily and relax, wrapping her arms around her companion's waist and holding on tightly as Delvin sets off.

She cranes her head over her shoulder as Nightgate Inn grows smaller and smaller. The borealis that greeted her when she arrived is gone, but Secunda is still high in the slumbering sky, reflecting brightly off the vast expanse of white snow underneath. Every snow-laden pine tree casts a blue-black shadow that draws her fleeting attention.

Somewhere in the darkness, a hunter is coming, and she is the prey. She reaches one hand up over her shoulder, finding the worn hilt of the too-large greatsword, and tries to relax.

Michha turns her gaze forward again, resting her chin on the other woman's shoulder. When the jostling motion of Delvin's gait nearly causes her to bite her own tongue off a few seconds later, she decides she wants to keep everything in her mouth intact and rethinks her position. After about an hour of riding as quickly as they can through the deep snowdrifts and crisscrossing small streams, the woman tugs on Delvin's reins to slow her and Michha relaxes her grip.

"What's your name?" Michha asks eventually, realizing that she can't keep calling her mysterious Dunmer companion 'the woman'. "Or at least, what should I call you?"

For a moment she thinks that the woman won't answer, that this will be one of those contracts, where the client insists on more drama and mystery than is really necessary, even for a Dark Brotherhood assassin. Then she speaks, and her voice is sad.

"Karliah. You may call me Karliah. Forgive my hesitation, it is a name I have avoided for nigh on twenty five years."

"Twenty five years?" Michha answers with a low whistle. "I can't imagine not hearing my name that long. That's most of my life. _Karliah._ It's a pretty name."

"You're not the first to tell me that."

"Karliah?" Michha asks with a wary glance at the quiet forest around them. Dawn is just a few hours away, and the increasing light will only make their tracks easier to follow. She hopes they have put enough distance between her and the... _friend_ from Dawnstar that she will live to see tomorrow's sunrise as well. "Can you tell me about the contract? That's why you wanted to meet, right?"

"It is a long story, child. Are you sure you want to hear it now?" Karliah says with a heavy sigh. Michha has the strong urge to embrace her, and squeezes her arms a little tighter around her waist in an awkward attempt at comfort. Conversation in their strange position is awkward, but manageable if Michha leans forward and Karliah tilts her head to the side.

"There's not much else to do here, is there? Windhelm is a far ways off."

"Yes, that's true. I'm sorry... I haven't told anyone else in a very long time. Where to begin? First, I must confirm - you are not part of the Dark Brotherhood anymore, correct?"

Michha stiffens and runs through her mental list - _left forearm, right forearm, back of right shoulder, lower right ribcage..._ \- in an effort to calm her nerves. She does not like where this line of questioning is going, and although every part of her is screaming that this is a trap and she needs to get as far away as possible from the Karliah, she forces herself to respond.

"Correct," she says with a curt nod. "Not officially... We had certain, um, differences. Will that be a problem?"

"Not at all," Karliah says. "You see, Michha, the Dark Brotherhood has an agreement of sorts with its... nicer cousin. What do you know about the Thieves Guild?"

"We're not allowed to take contracts on their members," Michha says slowly, mentally digging through every scrap of knowledge she has about the Guild. She's had contact with them only once before, when she was asked to take a necklace to them to appraise. In her mind's eye she sees the wretched excuse of the tavern, and beyond that the door she was not allowed to go through.

"They're not allowed to take contracts on the Guild," the woman amends. "But you are. And that's why I've seeked you out instead of going to them. Less trouble later, if you understand."

Michha's eyes narrow suspiciously as she begins to catch the drift of the contract. This won't be anything like slitting the throat of a meddling shopkeeper or a ex-lover who picked the wrong person to scorn. This will be someone as versed in the arts of sneaking as she is. This will be a contract like the ones that put her in this situation in the first place, the ones she swore she'd never take again. But she has no choice. The reserves of money she had stashed away are getting low, and she can't keep running and looking over her shoulder, waiting for them to catch up to her.

"Go on," she says.

Karliah remains silent for another few heartbeats, and Michha closes her eyes and listens to the sound of Delvin's breathing as she forges new paths through virgin snow. Just thinking about snow makes Michha feel colder, and she shivers and tries to shuffle closer to Karliah.

"Twenty five years ago, the Thieves Guild kept Skyrim in check with an iron hand. Our name was feared in every hold, our fingers were in every strongbox, our whispers made every shopkeeper our marionette. Our Guildmaster was a man named Gallus Desidenius. He was an extraordinary man, a brilliant thief and an excellent leader. He was also... my lover. To this day, I don't know if that played a part in what followed."

"Someone sabotaged you?" Michha guesses when Karliah trails off and seemingly forgets to continue her story for several minutes.

"Oh, worse. You see, the Thieves Guild shelters a much more secretive sect called the Nightingales. To keep the balance between Nirn and the Ebonmere, where our matron Nocturnal resides, there were always three of us. Gallus and I, and... _Mercer Frey_."

She speaks the name with such venom that Michha is momentarily taken aback, surprised by the change from the soft and melodious voice her companion has used up until now.

"Mercer was Gallus' apprentice, so to speak. Gallus and I had several more years of experience in thievery, but he compensated with sheer talent. But all the praise and success in the world wasn't enough for Mercer. He began to put pressure on Gallus to take grander and riskier jobs. What started as a friendship many men would give their right hand for was twisted by bitterness and jealousy. It eventually grew into a one-sided rivalry that Gallus remained stubbornly oblivious to. I begged him to take Mercer more seriously, but he thought it was simply teenage rebellion. One day..."

Karliah abruptly jerks Delvin to a halt and slips out of Michha's frozen grip to the ground. For a moment, Michha panics, pulling out two wicked sharp daggers and preparing to slit her own throat if that will keep her out of the clutches of her friend from Dawnstar, and that terrible, terrible room that delighted the Jester so much.

But no masked red and black shadow materializes between the trees, and when Michha looks back at Karliah, she realizes there is no immediate danger. The woman's shoulders are shaking with silent sobs. 

She dismounts as well, rather more cautiously, and takes Delvin's reins in hand, leading the mare in a slow walk around the small clearing they've stopped in. It feels nice to stretch her legs, though if her thighs hurt this much already, she can't imagine what arriving in Windhelm will feel like. After another moment, Karliah returns, wiping her eyes furiously. Both women quietly take their place, and with a murmur Karliah spurns Delvin forward again.

"As Nightingales, we were sworn to protect Nocturnal's domain, and her most powerful artefact - a skeleton key with the power to unlock anything. But Mercer just couldn't resist. After a particularly bad fight with Gallus... He stole the key and ran off."

Michha has the terrible feeling that she knows who she's being asked to kill.

"If he was such a good thief, why did he need the key?" she asks, leaning her head against Karliah's back.

"Don't think of the key as such a physical tool, Michha," Karliah responds. "When I say it unlocks anything... I truly mean anything. It can open the way to a person's pure potential. In the wrong hands, an artefact like that can be devastating. Gallus finally admitted that it was time to confront Mercer, and we tracked him down to a Nordic ruin not far from Windhelm... Snow Veil Sanctum. But even the two of us were no match for Mercer after he'd already had time to experiment with the key. It was a massacre. I barely escaped with my life, and Gallus..."

"Gallus died," Michha finishes, feeling hollow inside. If two skilled thieves - and whatever Nightingales are, too - couldn't take this Mercer Frey twenty five years ago, what does Karliah expect her to do? A miracle? She's a good assassin, but not a damned Divine.

"Yes... Mercer ran him through with his sword like our years of teaching and friendship had never happened. Had I returned to the Guild in time, perhaps all of us united would have been able to face Mercer, but he was too clever to allow me that victory. Without having to deal with injuries like I did, he made it to the Guild far before me, and told them all I'd killed Gallus myself. The Guild was devastated, of course. Gallus was not just a good Guildmaster. He was a friend. I never reached out to the others the way he did, never tried to socialize more than I had to. It was easy for them to believe I was the murderer. So I had no choice. I could never show my face there again - I'd be killed instantly. So I fled to Morrowind. And there I've been for the last twenty five years, trying to forget."

Michha says nothing for a while, unable to find the right words to respond to a tale like that. Inside she is overcome with a growing sense of dread. Over the Velothi mountains to the far east, the sky is growing steadily lighter, though the only hint of the rising sun is a subtle gray. Soon it will be morning, and their trail will be far too easy to follow.

"I don't think I can help you, Karliah," she says eventually. "I'm sorry, but from the sounds of it this contract will get me killed, and I've no death wish."

"You misunderstand," Karliah says, twisting around in the saddle to give her one of her serious, grief-laden gazes. "I don't want you to kill Mercer. Like you said, you'd have no chance of even getting close, and this... This is personal. I want to do it myself. But I've been away from the Guild for twenty five years, and I no longer know its inner workings. I need someone on the inside, to report to me and to help me guide Mercer to his death. The skill sets of an assassin are not so different from those of a thief, are they not?"

Michha's dark lips pucker into a round 'o' shape, slightly crooked from the two scars that run from one nostril to her chin.

"You want me to pose as a thief in the Guild? But it could take weeks for us to put a plan together!"

"Closer to months," Karliah corrects grimly. "Best for us to move slowly or else we risk raising Mercer's suspicions. I've waited twenty five years for my redemption. Another will make little difference."

"It will to me!" Michha argues, desperation flaring up in her chest. "Karliah, I have to keep moving, or the Brotherhood will hunt me down! I thought this would be a quick job that would pay enough to get me out of Skyrim forever, but if I stay in one place for months I'll never make it out alive."

"Oh Michha. Have you never been to Riften? If there's any place in Tamriel where one can hide and never be found, it's with the Thieves Guild. Besides, we'll make sure the Brotherhood stops looking for you. Forever."

"How?"

"Our trail leads quite clearly to Windhelm. We will be followed till there, and then your friend will see you die a _very_ public and _very_ spectacular death," Karliah says. For the first time since she finished relaying her tragic story, a hint of something other than grief enters the tone of her voice - mischievousness. Anxiety twists Michha's gut.

"And if that works? If the Brotherhood takes the bait and I skip off to Riften and the Guild accepts me - how do you even know Mercer's still there? In twenty five years he could have died, or moved on, or-"

"He's still there," Karliah interrupts. "He's their Guildmaster."

Michha groans loudly and buries her face in the wispy darkness of Karliah's armour. Of course her target would be the Guildmaster. Her head is spinning with all this new information. And she thought the plan to murder the Emperor was complicated! That ordeal pales in comparison to what it seems this contract will hold. She will need to sit down somewhere quiet with charcoal and paper and write everything down, make diagrams and sketches of the sewer-stinking tavern she remembers hazily...

"Fine," Michha says eventually. "I see you have many plans already made. As for my payment, what do you have in mind?"

"You mentioned wanting to leave Skyrim?"

"I came here when I was three and ten. Before that, I resided in Daggerfall with my father. I can't say it's an arrangement I'm aching to return to, but at least there I can live out the rest of my days," Michha admits. "I'd have been on my way already, but I simply couldn't scrounge up enough gold to pay for passage to High Rock."

"When I see Mercer's blood," Karliah promises lowly, "I assure you, Michha, that I will pay your entire voyage to Daggerfall, and then some. Think it over."

Michha twists in the saddle and looks back where they've come from. Behind them, Delvin's hoofprints stretch into dawn seemingly forever. At the other end of that trail, a murderer carries a knife with her name on it. She's been running for weeks, though it feels like forever. She can't do this forever. However dangerous and suicidal Karliah's offer seems, it is her only chance to escape Astrid's wrath.

"I've made my decision."

"As I knew you would."

Michha leans her head against Karliah's back again, a position she's been taking up more and more as the hours pass. Her eyelids droop so she sees Skyrim pass by through the sliver her half-open eyelids allow, and then they close. It should be impossible to sleep on horseback, and Delvin's rocking hindquarters are nowhere near comfortable, but their midnight flight from Nightgate Inn and the resulting discussion has exhausted her. She's dimly aware of Karliah encouraging her to rest and apologizing for waking her, and then there is only quiet.

 


	3. Pursuit

When Michha wakes once more, it is morning and the mist rising off the river running along the road makes her feel like she's in a dream. She blinks sleepily as she lifts her head from Karliah's shoulder and gazes in awe at the way the pale winter sunlight reflects off the millions of tiny shards of ice, shrouding Delvin and her two passengers in an ethereal fog. Her appreciation for Skyrim's natural beauty lessens when she realizes that in such a weather, it would be child's play for an assassin to put a knife in her spine and fade back into the mist. Michha shifts nervously in the saddle, feeling her stiff muscles protest.

"Sleep well?"

"Ugh," Michha groans in response. "Never going to ride through a night again."

“You haven’t done much riding before?” Karliah questions. Michha hums softly in response and recalls a pitch black horse, tossing its mane impatiently as she wiped blood off her blades, eyes quite literally smoking with a fire that could have come only from Oblivion itself.

“I have. His name was Shadowmere, and he was beautiful,” she says wistfully. “But he stuck out like a sore thumb in stables. Too noticeable, and too protective of me. I had to put him down before he drew the others to me.”

“A shame,” Karliah echoes sympathetically, and Michha feels her lean forward and pat Delvin’s neck.

“It’s okay,” Michha says, and she tries to keep her voice upbeat so she doesn’t show how much she misses having a companion whose loyalty and devotion is unquestionable, and doesn’t depend on someone else’s orders. “He doesn’t really die. There’s a pool of tar by the Sanctuary that he’s reborn in after a while. So now the others can take care of him.”

They fall into contemplative silence until they come to a spot where the White River narrows to a fordable stream. Michha eyes the gurgling water as Karliah draws Delvin to a halt at its edge and hopes her Dunmer client isn’t going to make them dismount and swim across. It’s far too cold for such an endeavour.

Luckily Karliah only lets Delvin take a long drink of water as she roots around in her saddlebags for provisions. Michha holds the dry cheese slice she’s given as though it’s a newborn, having survived almost entirely on dried meat and stale bread on the run. The meal they have by the river is nothing compared to the veritable feast old Hadring at prepared for her at Nightgate Inn, but it is still a far cry from the last few weeks.

“You’re too thin,” Karliah murmurs as Michha slips off of Delvin’s back and stretches her legs on the expanse of icy rock along the riverbank. Michha only glances down and picks lazily at the worn wool dress under her travelling cloak. She stole it from a farmer’s wife that must have been two heads taller and a great deal more developed at the breast and hips, so of course it drapes unseemingly over her thin frame.

“It’s okay,” Michha says, shrugging and trying to nibble on the chunk of cheese a little slower as she walks, acting like it’s nothing special.

“No it’s not,” Karliah says with a sigh, motioning for her to climb back on when Delvin raises her head and nickers impatiently. “And don’t give me that look, we’re not riding for long. Delvin’s exhausted, and I can only push her for so long.”

Karliah continues as Michha mounts with a grumble, telling her she’ll ‘get her into shape’. As Michha quickly learns, ‘getting into shape’ does not only entail regaining lost weight and forming muscle, but also certain skill-training. She drops the padlock Karliah tosses over her shoulder in the river, but her numb fingers somehow catch the attached chain.

“Unlock it.”

Michha bites her lip as she examines the lock, holding it so close to her face that when Delvin misses a step, the metal hits her in the forehead and leaves her grimacing for a moment. It’s not a particularly difficult lock – simple and of standard make, the kind Michha usually finds on poor farmhouses and rusted gates. But lockpicking has never been her forte, and it’s with a long-suffering sigh that she retrieves her shiv and a lockpick from their place in her Brotherhood leathers.

She loops the chain around her wrist so she won’t lose it, and gets to work on the difficult task of tinkering with it while Delvin’s motion jars her arm every other step and makes the lock impossible to keep in one place.

Karliah remains silent as the snap of the first two lockpicks rings out in the wilderness and bits of metal shower her back. After the third, she turns her head so that Michha can just barely see the smile playing on her lips.

“Having difficulties?” she asks.

“This is bloody impossible,” Michha exclaims. “I can’t keep it still. What kind of training is this? When am I ever going to need to pick a lock on horseback?”

“I was once thrown into the jail in Solitude,” Karliah remarks. “I escaped on an Imperial charger and picked the chains around my wrists under fire from archers stationed on the wall. It’s a useful skill to have.”

Michha groans and throws her hands up in frustration, nearly losing the chain looped around her forearm. Karliah lets her take a break however, and Michha simply watches the trees go by until the sun is a faint ghost in the sky above their heads, and it’s time to dismount for a noon rest. Karliah slips off first and then raises her arms to help Michha off. It’s not a necessary gesture, but Michha’s thighs ache from the long ride and she appreciates it nonetheless – until she hears the click of a lock as she thanks Karliah and looks down to see that the thief has somehow shackled her wrist to Delvin’s stirrup.

“Free yourself and then take Delvin’s saddle off, she deserves a good rest,” Karliah says over her shoulder as she hefts a quiver full of pitch black arrows over her shoulder and jaunts away. Michha stares at the Dunmer woman’s disappearing back until she’s somehow melted into the landscape – it should be impossible, given the contrast of her armour against the blindingly white snow, but it happens nonetheless.

“If you decide to wander off in the middle of this, so help me, I will throw all your oats into the river,” Michha warns Delvin, and the mare only gives her an unimpressed snort in return. With a groan, she pulls her lockpicks out once again and attacks the lock with a ferocious tenacity. She has the first few tumblers in place when she hears the first howl.

Before she can settle her fears and reassure herself that it was only her imagination, she hears another two in quick succession.

Michha freezes, her gaze quickly sliding from the lock in her hands to Delvin, whose ears are perked and alert. Michha looks at the loop Karliah’s made around her wrist with the lock’s chain and swears quietly. Her blades are all within reach of course, strapped to her arms and legs and hips, but Delvin will never allow a pack of wolves to come close enough that Michha can fend them off that way. Like most horses, she’ll likely bolt if the danger is too great, and if Delvin bolts… There is no question that Michha’s wrist will snap horrifically and she’ll be dragged along until some sharp rock ends her misery.

She’s come too far to die in such a pathetic way.

Michha tugs at the buckles and straps that hold Delvin’s saddle to her in desperation, loosening them enough that she can slip the saddle off the mare’s side and hang it under her belly. The reversal leaves the stirrups high up enough that when Michha throws herself onto Delvin’s back – a difficult enough task without full use of her hands and a saddle to haul herself up on – the chain doesn’t tug too badly at her arm. The mare whinnies nervously, already pawing at the frozen ground under her hooves.

“Stay, Delvin,” Michha says in what she hopes is a soothing tone. She hunches over the chain around her wrist and tries to remember where she had her pick when the howls distracted her – she was close to getting it. Her hands are shaking slightly and a lockpick slips out of her hand, falling into the snow below and leaving nothing but a faint imprint. “At least it’s not the shiv.”

But her fumbling fingers take precious seconds to find another lockpick in the folds of her leathers, and by then the wolves have appeared – first two and then a third lurking just behind, sunken eyes glowing yellow. These are no ordinary wolves but their harsher Northern cousins; ice wolves. It’s plain to see that this winter has been hard on them – their fur is matted on skin that clings to bare bone. Wolves don’t often attack travellers, but there is no sign of spring in Morning Star and desperation drives them.

 _Where is Karliah?_ she thinks wildly, but there is no sign of the Dunmer. Delvin skitters to the side nervously and tosses her head, still neighing in a high pitch. Michha gives up on the lock and instead reaches for one of her smaller knives, one with an ebony handle and a blade so carefully crafted she can balance it on one finger. It glints darkly in the sun as she flips it into her hand and watches the wolves prowl closer.

It is the one that turns off slightly, trying to flank Delvin and attack them from behind, that draws Michha’s attention. She flicks the knife without hesitation and it spins too fast for her eyes to keep track of, burying deep into the wolf’s shoulder. With a yelp of pain the mutt turns away and limps to safety.

Just as one of the other wolves leaps forward with a snarl, spit dangling from between wickedly-curved yellow teeth, the arrows come in quick succession, their only warning a quiet splitting of the air.

“Karliah!” Michha exclaims, yanking on Delvin’s reins as the mare rears back and neighs in panic. It is all she can do to cling to her neck and not fall off, the upside down saddle making Delvin’s back a slippery smooth slope. The Dunmer thief appears from between two trees like a phantom, another arrow drawn and ready in her bow, but only one of the wolves is in any condition to run away.

At the sight of her rider Delvin calms slightly, and Michha manages to fiddle with the last two tumblers of her lock. Finally free, she slips off Delvin’s back and into the snow, knees too weak with fading adrenaline to keep her upright.

“Are you hurt?” Karliah exclaims, rushing forward and kneeling at her side. Michha pushes her hovering hands away with a breathy laugh and gets to her feet.

“Fine, just… Promise me, Karliah, that you will never chain me to anything ever again!”

The thief’s lilac eyes only sparkle with amusement.

“I thought the incentive would help,” she teases. “But I’m pleased with the result. You handled yourself very well under pressure.” It is only later that Michha realizes that in the resulting banter, she never hears the other woman agree to her promise, and in the later days that they travel together, Karliah tricks her into many situations. Michha can only grudgingly admit that her lockpicking skills are slowly improving with all the practice. Once she can open the standard iron padlock in several seconds, Karliah tests her with another, and another – all removed from what they were originally keeping safe. It does help to pass the time as they ride to Windhelm, making slow but steady progress.

On her fifth day travelling with Karliah without any sign of danger, Michha stops looking over her shoulder constantly. The threat of the Brotherhood finding her and hunting her down seems smaller now with an ally at her side – and Karliah is talented at keeping Michha’s attention on other things. On the sixth day she declares Michha ready to take on a lock of Elven make, and she accepts the challenge with eager determination.

“Windhelm has a good market,” Karliah tells her in the short breaktimes she allows Michha between training. “Very many people packed into a walled city with little hope of expansion. Pickpockets are safest in crowds, where anyone could be blamed for a missing purse or a wandering hand. We’ll walk around the city first, let you become familiar with your environment. You’ll need to know where the alleys and dead ends are.”

In a way, it is not so different from her Brotherhood training. The final result is different, of course, but the approach is familiar. Michha finds that she looks forward to scouting out Windhelm. She has been there a few times before – a twin sister with the wrong friends, a paranoid man huddled by the river who shrieked curses at her as her daggers found their mark – but she has never had a chance to explore the city fully, only focusing on her targets.

Karliah tells her many stories, both on Delvin’s back to pass the time and in the brief hours they dismount to let Delvin rest. They dare not risk a fire with the threat of Michha’s siblings still hanging over their heads, and so they sleep back to back for warmth. Michha thinks their arrangements make it easier for Karliah to speak, because they never have to face. The Dunmer thief tries to be cheerful with Michha, and the young assassin sees glimpses of happiness in her companion whenever she accomplishes a particularly challenging exercise and holds up an solved lock for her to see, or when she takes over Delvin’s care, but there are other moments when Karliah will turn away, her head bowed and her eyes staring unseeingly at the ground.

She wonders what it would be like if someone killed Gabriella in front of her, or if her pretty sister had one day never returned from an assignment, and then the serene sadness that Karliah radiates seems to make perfect sense.

And so they continue.

Karliah does not question Michha when she quietly asks if they can make a stop, somewhere near the end of the journey. The Dunmer woman only reminds Michha they should not stay too long in one place, and Michha nods at that.

“It won't take long. A few moments,” she says as she slips off Delvin's back with a relieved grunt. After so many days of near continious riding, it feels almost strange to walk on her own two legs. The warmth and pressure of Delvin's back between her thighs is missing and she doesn't know if she minds or not. The first few days of near continious riding rubbed the soft flesh of her inner thighs raw, but the pain gave way to tougher skin and increased tolerance for the long stretches of riding Karliah insists on.

Michha can feel that curious lilac gaze on her back as she steps forward, stretching out the tension in her limbs and clambering onto a snow-covered rock for a higher perspective. On either side, the White River gurgles through icy blockades interrupted by the occasional stretch of rapids. To the east, down the gentle slope of the mountain range they are now descending on, she can see a thin tendril of smoke rising into the sky. She knows that if they follow it to its base, they will find a wood mill owned by an old woman who will grudgingly give them room and board in exchange for labour.

She knows because that is where she stopped so many months ago with a sweet smile and a dagger behind her back, asking for the Imperial who had worked the mill before he was driven mad by the paranoia that someone was after him. He had been right, of course, but that was unimportant.

The old woman had pointed a gnarled finger west, directing her to this very spot by the river.

It is colder now than it was, Michha thinks. Perhaps she did the Imperial a favour by slitting his throat. He would have never survived the winter out here, not with the icy spray coming off the rocks upon which he set up his pathetic camp.

It is harder to find with the snow up to her thighs in some places, but eventually she wades through it to the single peak of a stick poking through the surface of white. A little bit of digging reveals rough scraps of fabric attached to the structure, bleached by exposure to sun and rain. Michha resolves not to dig further, though she's sure the vultures had plenty of time to pick the bones clean before the snow fell.

“What is this place?” Karliah asks, having coerced Delvin into trotting part ways off the path after Michha.

“I gave my Father a gift here,” Michha says simply. “His name was Ennodius Papius, and he was a very sick man. I sent him to the void so his dreams wouldn't trouble him anymore.”

“A mercy killing,” Karliah says.

“Of sorts,” Michha responds with a slight frown on her face. She turns away from the remains of the camp that became Ennodius' resting place, her hand slipping off the stick that still stands bravely against the elements. The sun's rays hardly warm what little of her face is exposed, but she raises her chin anyway and closes her eyes in contemplation.

After a moment, Delvin's whinny reminds her that they'd better start moving again. Michha wades back through the windswept waves of snow and brushes a soothing hand along the mare's neck. Karliah offers her arm and Michha takes it gratefully, hauling herself up into the saddle. They are quiet for a while, keeping their heads down as they ride past the wood mill and the woman that works it now eyes them with thinly veiled suspicion, but once they are past Karliah speaks again.

"I've spent the last few days thinking about how we're going to kill you."

"I don't much like the sound of that," Michha responds nervously. Her Dunmer companion only laughs lightly in response.

"How we're going to pretend to kill you. I've been thinking about the way you lit a candle with magic when I woke you up in Nightgate Inn," Karliah remembers. "Does your skill in Destruction magic extend further?"

"Not really. Learned a few tricks from Fes - I mean, from a friend. But I can't do much more than light a candle or heal a small cut."

"Oh, that changes things... I was hoping you could cast a certain spell, being a Breton..."

"Half-Breton," Michha mutters. "My mother was a Redguard, and she didn't much like magic."

"You don't look it," Karliah answers, twisting in the saddle and eyeing a lock of auburn hair that hangs out of her hood. Michha averts her eyes as the lilac gaze scrutinizes her. "Take after your father, I suppose?"

"Only in looks," Michha insists. "And nothing else."

"Well, if you can't cast... I have a few favours I can call in Windhelm. I would have liked to keep our plan to ourselves, but that can't be helped. Tell me Michha, are you familiar with the docks?"

Michha gives a non-committal hum, her ears barely hearing Karliah's last words as Delvin plods on and a majestic figure rises out of the mist, standing on a rock overlooking the road far above them. Michha has already made note of Skyrim's obsession with their dear Talos in her past years and written it off as silly, but she can't help but be impressed by the huge statue framed by fog and wilderness. There is, admittedly,  a certain majesty in the Nordic man-god, but she has her own deity.

"We must be close to Windhelm," Karliah notes, following her gaze. "Not long now, if Delvin can keep the pace."

Michha leans forward and opens her mouth to make a comment but the words never come out - in their place is a gasp as she feels something nudge the greatsword on her back with small but violent force. The arrow falls harmlessly to the ground beside them, and as Michha turns to watch it, her mind connects its appearance with the quiet clang as it deflected off her sword.

The seconds that it takes her sleep-muddled mind to piece together a conclusion cost her.

"Kar-"

The second arrow finds its mark true in her lower back, and Michha slumps onto Karliah with a pained groan, eyes wide with terror. Delvin bucks and bolts forward in fear and Michha barely succeeds in holding on.

"Michha!" Karliah says urgently, letting go of the reins with one hand and pulling Michha's arms tighter around her waist. "Stay awake. Where did it hit you?"

"Lower back," Michha responds thickly. She can feel the arrow embedded in her flesh like the foreign intrusion it is, can feel Delvin's frenzied gallop jostling it and making the injury worse, but there's hardly any pain. When she realizes the creeping feeling up her spine is not from the fear that's making her heart pound and her head spin, she only feels worse. "She uses poison. Paralyse. Imp stool and canis root are her favourites, it'll kill me slowly."

"Windhelm is another hour away, at least," Karliah says, looking over her shoulder to check if they're still being pursued.

"I don't think I have a hour," Michha mumbles, feeling tears spring to her eyes. "Karliah, I don't want to die."

"You're not going to," Karliah says, and her voice is so fierce and determined that Michha closes her eyes and tries to believe through the dull throbs that are rippling across her back in waves. How many times did she sit alongside her deadly sisters, peeling canis root to get at the soft green center, or wading through murky swampwater to find fungal pods to bring back to them? They'd laugh as they prepared ingredients together, talking and teasing with instruments of death in their hands.

She never imagined that same poison her sister favoured would one day be used on her. It hurts. Not physically, because she can feel herself losing control of her extremities already, but in her heart. It hurts a lot.

"Keep your eyes open," Karliah insists, and Michha forces her eyelids to left even though they feel swollen and heavy and the cold air only makes her eyes water even more. The winter landscape around them passes in a white-gray blur, but somehow Delvin's thundering hooves slow in front of stables and there is a flurry of activity around them - Karliah barking orders and passing coin to the stablehands, a pair of guards coming to investigate the visitor who comes to their gates with an arrow in her back.

Michha tries to look at their faces as they help Karliah drag her off Delvin's back, and sees only beige blurs, void of personality or detail. Her legs no longer respond to her command and it is all she can do to keep her head upright as their strange party half-carries, half-drags her over the bridge.

"Imp stool," she tries to remind the gray haze at her side that must be Karliah, but the words come out slurred and distorted by her swollen tongue. She tries the second ingredient, only to butcher the pronunciation of 'canis root' even more. She nearly sobs in frustration, but breathing is getting harder and harder and her lungs can't spare that kind of energy.

Michha has no idea where she's being carried, only that she doesn't want the hands holding her upright anymore and that these guards are quite rude to drag her around when all she wants to do is lie on the ground and take a long, long nap until the dull ache in her body goes away. There is more commotion, shouting she hears as though from underwater, and a far-too bright torch.

Dark fingers wave over her face, though she can't say if there are two or three or five. They rest first on her cheeks, so light she can't feel their touch at all, and then gently pull her eyelids down. Perhaps her caretaker meant it as a gesture of gentle mercy, allowing her to rest, but the poison prickles at her immobile body, demanding her attention. Michha floats in darkness for what could either be another few minutes or the rest of the Fourth Era, too gone to open her eyes and fight the poison's hold on her, too present to let go and sleep. She has a fleeting thought, a moment of detached panic when she wonders if this is where her mother's legacy was meant to end, and then at last, she is set free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES HELLO I AM ALIVE
> 
> Took a (very) long break from the fandom but I think I'm ready to come back now. Next chapter for this already written and ready to break your hearts. Ones is almost ready for an update.


	4. Debt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down.

Eastmarch is best known throughout Skyrim for its capital city, and so is generally associated with snow, obsessive declarations of love to Talos, more snow, and a chill that goes so deep that it never truly leaves the bones - or the hearts - of the Nords that occupy it. And snow, in case that wasn't mentioned enough for its sheer amount to sink in.

In reality only a small corner of Eastmarch conforms to the stereotypes, and the bulk of its territory is comprised of a volcanic tundra as unknown as the base of the icebergs that crowd the maw of the White River. Volcanic tundras aren't good for much more than bucketloads of steam, rare alchemical ingredients and - you guessed it - mammoths.

So many gods-forsaken mammoths.

Which would certainly explain why Michha awakes feeling like she's been trampled by a whole herd of them, and maybe tossed around by their giant shepherd for good measure.

Karliah is at her side the second her eyes flicker open, brushing her hair back from her forehead with motherly tenderness. Michha isn't yet recovered enough to do much more than grimace at her and try to turn away from the light. She got drunk once, in her earlier months falling in with the family. Nazir had challenged her to a drinking contest, and as the stupid, desperate-to-impress initiate she had been, she'd accepted. The ordeal she faced the next morning felt much like this, only without the grudging happiness that had come from spending time with her family.

"Karliah," Michha whispers. She closes her eyes to try to fend off the tears that threaten to build there, but it does little more than push them out of the corners of her eyes. Two twin droplets roll down the sides of her face, soaking her ears with cold moisture.

"It's okay, Michha. We got you the antidote in time and now you're safely hidden. You were very clever to tell me the ingredients in the poison."

"I used to make it with her all the time," Michha whispers, her voice thickening with emotion. "All three of us. We'd throw all the bits we didn't use down to Lis, because she eats anything. And now they used it on me."

"Shh," Karliah says, raising out of her bedside crouch and sitting on the side of the mattress instead so she can comfort Michha better. "Was this the closest call you've had since you ran?"

Michha nods, still not daring to open her eyes lest more tears escape. Karliah's hands find her cheeks and stroke away the wet trails. Michha likes her hands. They're soft like a pickpocket's should be, but not too soft, callused as they are by years of drawing a bow. If she keeps her eyes closed she can almost imagine that they're a different but very similar pair of hands.

But Karliah sighs and moves away, and Michha forces herself to come to terms that she has lost her family. Her brothers and sisters and sometime-lover have all become her predators.

"How do you feel?" Karliah asks as she pours a bottle of mead into a slightly rusted tankard and holds it out. Michha sits up with a wince and reaches for her back with one hand, expecting a bloody hole and finding only rough bandages against her fingers. At Karliah's stern look, she leaves the bandages alone and accepts the tankard.

"Terrible. How long...?"

"It's nearly midnight, still the same day it was when we arrived," Karliah answers. "I'm certain your friend has reached the city by now, which is just as well because I'd like to stage your death tomorrow and have it done with."

"You and I both," Michha mutters into her drink. "I do hope your plan isn't actually going to kill me, however. Sithis has not been kind to me recently and I don't want to reunite with him just yet. What in Oblivion is in this mead? It tastes horrible."

"I thought a health potion would be easier to swallow if it was sweetened. And I promise no harm will come to you if you can follow my instructions," Karliah says with a frown.

Michha sets the tankard down with one last disgruntled look sent its way, and struggles out of the thin cot she's been laid out on. She is naked aside from her small clothes and the bandages around her torso, and she wraps the blanket around her shoulders both for warmth and a minute sense of security, though it will grant her no more protection from poison-coated arrows than her clothes did.

"The arrow. The one that was in me, do you have it?"

"No, we had to break it to get it out. Was it important?" Karliah responds. Michha paces around the room unsteadily, working the feeling back into her stiff limbs, and shakes her head.

"No. I just... I would have liked to have it. Where are we now?"

"A hidden room in the Gray Quarter's most infamous tavern. Don't worry, the barkeep's indebted to me," Karliah says with a wink, before standing and making her way to what Michha originally thinks is just a crack in the wall. After she pries it open to reveal a cleverly-disguised door, Michha begins to wonder exactly what kind of tavern needs a hidden room.

Karliah sticks her head out of the door and softly calls someone. A moment later, a second Dunmer woman joins them and takes a place at the rickety table on the other side of the room.

"Michha, this is Idesa. Idesa, this is Michha. Shall we get down to business?"

"I have terms, firstly," the newcomer - Idesa - says with a suspicious glance at Karliah. Michha pulls her blanket closer around her shoulders, disliking the mistrust radiating from the woman who apparently owes Karliah.

"Let's hear them," Michha croaks tiredly when Karliah is taken aback.

"I want no trouble with the guards. It would reflect poorly on the Dunmer as a whole, as well as the family that employs me. I will not help with some form of thievery or murder."

 _A pity_ , Michha thinks. _Those are exactly our specialties_. Aloud, she and Karliah both agree in quiet voices.

"No one will be dying tomorrow, Idesa. We only require your aid to cast a few runes on a ship, and to blend in with a crowd."

"What will be on the ship?" Idesa asks, still looking wary. Michha doesn't blame her - Karliah has a strange, otherworldly aura about her, even without the midnight-black armour. It's off-putting at the best of times, often disturbingly eerie.

"Michha herself, along with a few supplies suitable for a runaway," Karliah responds. "To any observers, it will look like Michha has paid for passage to Solthsteim, only for the ship to burst into flames with her on it before Windhelm loses sight of it. While everyone watches the ship burn, she takes a stroll underwater."

"Are you sure we can do something like that, Karliah?" Michha asks, her mind running through all the ways this could go terribly wrong - there is no doubt one of her brothers or sisters will be watching to make sure she is dead. If there is even a trace of uncertainty, the entire ordeal will have been for nothing.

"Relax, child. I will sort out the remaining details until morning. Your only job is to rest and recuperate. Can you do that?"

Michha only nods and hitches the blanket tighter around her shoulders, holding the excess folds in a nervous fistful at her front. It is a strange feeling, to be part of such danger. She is not scared of dying tomorrow, only of ceasing to exist. They are not quite the same thing. Karliah stands and gently coaxes her to bed, but Michha refuses to close her eyes until the steel greatsword propped up against the bedside table is brought to her. She clutches it to her chest even as her bare skin shies from the cold of the metal designs on the scabbard, and is only vaguely aware of the hidden door opening and closing as the two Dunmer woman depart.

When she wakes again, there is a tiny patch of bright light shining directly into her eye. Michha blinks and recoils until she realizes it's just light steaming in through the cracks in the floorboards above her. The houses in this area of Windhelm are so shoddily built, she thinks, that one of her stronger brothers or sisters could prowl right over head, stomp their foot through the half-rotted wood, and slit her throat before anyone was any wiser. They could even kneel, press their face to the worn wood and stare right through the gaps down at her vulnerable body. Perhaps one of them is doing that right now, and she will see the gleam of their eye in the cracks if she only looks hard enough.

 _I must stop having such morbid thoughts_ , Michha thinks as she relaxes her grip on her greatsword and slips out of bed. Her head pounds for a minute, and fades to a slightly more manageable ache. She feels stronger than she did just a few hours ago, the mixture of potions Karliah poured down her throat having done their work beyond her expectation. But she is still in no condition to swim across the icy span of the White River, especially not this time of year. She only hopes her trust in Karliah will not be the end of her.

She dresses only in the bare minimum, her assassin's leathers and a woolen tunic, and quietly moves a few mismatched chairs around until she has cleared enough space in the center of the tiny room to go through her exercises. She stretches first, testing the limits of her sore muscles and warming to the cold morning. Her knife forms follow, starting with the simplest ones she learned under the tutelage of her father's knights, and then the more elaborate ones she picked up in Skyrim. She passes over the ones that involve a lot of spinning or ducking, not wanting to antagonize her headache.

Michha does not know when Karliah enters, only that she becomes aware of her phantom-like companion halfway through the motions of an arm bar designed to snap an opponent's elbow and force them to drop their own weapon - usually so she can use it against them. She completes the form after a moment of hesitation and finishes without flourish, standing to attention and wiping a bead of sweat away from her brow.

"I knew I chose well," Karliah says, her lilac eyes gleaming with grudging approval.

"Wasn't much of a choice if I was the only option you had," Michha responds, walking slowly around the room to bring her heart rate down. She is disappointed to see how strenuous her usual exercises were in her injured state, and in berating herself doesn't realize that Karliah casts her gaze to the ground and never replies to that. "Is everything prepared?"

"Yes," Karliah says smoothly, stepping forward and dropping a dark bundle onto the bed. "You will want to wear these. They're enchanted to keep you from freezing to death mid-swim, and Idesa will be ready when you make it back to warm you. And this," Karliah says, pulling out a silver chain with an emerald at the end, "Will let you breathe underwater. Take care of it. It took me three moons to track one down."

"I have to admit I'm a little nervous," Michha confesses as the Dark Elf slips the pendant over her head.

"As I've told you, you have no reason to be as long as you follow my instructions exactly. I'm quite meticulous with these things."

Michha takes a deep breath and nods as she reaches for the dark robes, unsure what words, if any, will untangle the knot of dread in her stomach. She has a job to do, a new part to play, so by the time she pulls the hood over her head and turns to face Karliah, her expression betrays none of the fear inside. Her stiff fingers are curled into tight fists within the robe's billowing sleeves, and she relaxes them enough to reach for the greatsword lying on the bed, slipping the scabbard's strap over her shoulder.

"You'll have to leave that on the boat," Karliah comments, eyeing the heavy steel sword. "It looks far too heavy for you to swim with it."

Michha's head snaps up and she stares at Karliah, eyes widening as she realizes the Dunmer thief is right.

"I can't," she says quickly, her hand reaching up instinctively to grip the worn leather strip around the hilt. "It's... important to me."

Karliah sighs, then reaches her hand out.

"I'll take it."

Michha needs a minute to process that, before she reluctantly shrugs the greatsword off and hands it over as carefully as one might pass a child, or an expensive vase. Without its familiar weight on her back, she feels naked and vulnerable, though it is unwieldy and heavy on her person.

"Keep it safe please," she says, as Karliah slings it alongside her bow.

"Naturally," the older woman says, before reaching for her hand. "Come. Idesa's waiting for us."

Michha keeps her head down as Karliah leads her through the tavern. By the weak sunlight streaming in through gaps in the shoddy wooden walls she can see swirls of dust dancing, scattered by the motion of the bar's few occupants. By the door, Karliah pauses and turns once more towards her.

"I'll be right by your side, even if you can't see me. Don't turn around, don't look to the sides, just walk to the docks. Whatever happens, you need to get there," she says, then raises her voice and glances over her shoulder. "Thank you for the meal, Ambarys."

Michha readjusts the dark hood about her face as the bartender gives a vaguely displeased response, making sure it casts her features into indistinguishable shadow. Then she opens the door, feeling like the motion of a hand twisting a doorknob is oddly similar to twisting a knife in someone's gut, and steps through.

The first thing she notices is that the Gray Quarter smells awful. She resists the urge to clamp a hand to her mouth as the stench of piss and fish - _never a good combination_ \- comes over her in a wave, and trots down the tavern's steps. The second thing she notices is the damned brightness of the morning's sunlight - again making her head pound - and the maze-like quality of the neighborhood. The streets are narrow and winding, made even more cramped by the odd cluster of barrels in the shelter of an alcove or haphazardly piled crates. As she descends, she realizes that some of the ragged bundles huddled beside weakly burning braziers are not simply more supplies, but Dark Elves using empty burlap sacks as blankets. The sight twists her heart.

She's been to Windhelm before, yes, but her targets were often affluent, wealthy people, giving her little reason to visit the Gray Quarter. The Nords living in the cleaner, Western half of the city have plenty of enemies, ones with enough gold to pay someone like Michha to do their dirty work, but here in the Gray Quarter, the deadliest villain must be the cold.

She averts her eyes when a suspicious red gaze seems to question, _why are you staring at our misery?_  and keeps going, nearly tripping over a rat large enough that she begins to wonder if there is some skeever in its ancestry.

"Through those doors."

Karliah's whisper is so faint it could almost be one of Michha's own thoughts, if not for the melodious voice. Michha nearly looks behind her for reassurance, but she reminds herself sternly of Karliah's words, continuing down the stairs to a set of heavy wooden doors in Windhelm's outer wall, twice as tall as herself. There is a woman rocking a crying baby, crouched so close to the brazier that Michha fears the tattered sleeves of her dress will catch fire, but she cannot worry about the safety of others when her own life hangs in the balance.

She nods to the guard leaning against the wall and uncomfortably ignoring the woman's wailing child, and pushes her way through.

She almost immediately stiffens, blinking furiously to clear her head of the bright light. At least within the city's walls, there was always someone watching, someone whose eye was on her. None of her brothers and sisters would dare to make their move there. But the doors have opened up into a narrow stone corridor that is completely empty.

"Quickly," Karliah's voice hisses at her shoulder, and Michha sticks to the shadows cast by looming walls as she hurries down the corridor's stairs. She does not look up at the cold stone walls hemming her in, does not dare give in to prey instincts. If she knows her sister half as well as she thinks she does, she'll be watching from the parapets, or somewhere else with a good vantage point.

While the Gray Quarter seemed drenched in a stilted, angry sort of silence, the docks are alive with furious activity. It seems almost entirely populated by Argonians, making Michha feel a little awkward about her lack of tail and scales. She keeps her head down and sticks close to a worker carrying several sacks of provisions, keeping his muscled, scaled body between her and the looming parapets. The dock is too exposed, far too exposed, but as long as she can keep out of the way of a clear shot... Her heart beats so loudly she's sure he must be able to hear it, but he only gives her a bored, sideways look, and carries on.

The rowboat Idesa has arranged is easy to find; a smaller, bedraggled little craft that looks a little ridiculous beside the larger one moored at its side. She crouches beside it, fortunately blocked from any potential arrows by a surplus stack of crates, and runs a hesitant hand along the wood.

"Do you see the runes?" Karliah hisses in her ear, and Michha gives a start because there isn't anyone behind her, no one near her at all. But she looks at the boat all the same, and sees the faint, glowing orange outline of two fire runes, one in the very front of the boat, one towards the stern, behind a stack of a few crates that should just barely give her enough cover to not be shot in the back. She nods and swallows thickly. "Good. Climb in front of the crates. There is a sack of flour under the bench. When you're out in open water, you must throw that onto the rune in front of you, and push the crates onto the rune behind you, and then you have to topple the boat. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Michha whispers. "Karliah, I'm scared."

"Don't be. You'll be fine. All you have to do is get underwater. You don't even have to swim, you just have to sink to the bottom, and walk towards the bridge. I'll be waiting for you there. Are you ready?"

This time, Michha doesn't answer. One way or another, she is going to die today.

She climbs into the boat, her haste rocking it so hard that she very nearly topples it prematurely. Karliah is nowhere to be seen, but Michha forces her cold, stiff fingers to untie the rope that holds her rowboat in place all the same, trusting her friend to do her part. Her hands are still shaking when she reaches for the oars and pushes herself away from the docks. She can feel a prickle on the back of her neck, knows for sure that she is being watched.

_An assassin knows the value of patience._

Michha has crouched in damp alleys with rain running down her back for hours at a time before, waiting for the perfect opportunity for a kill. So she paces her breathing, in and out, in and out, as she rows away from Windhelm. When she has just passed the last dock, she angles the boat, and reaches for the sack of flour between her feet.

It is heavier than she expected, this instrument of her death. She takes a deep breath, and drops it on the gleaming lines etched into the wood in front of her.

The explosion is immediate, and strong enough that a sliver of wood broken off the boat goes flying and hits her in the temple, scarcely three fingers-breadth from impaling her eye. With a cry of pain, she elbows the crate behind her with enough power to push it onto the other rune, and lets herself fall off the side of the boat.

Beneath the surface, there is no sound, only cold. She feels it, but she does not _feel_ it, thanks to Karliah's enchantments. She takes an involuntary breath, water sliding down her throat, and though it makes her cough violently as she experiences the peculiar sensation of water filling up her lungs, it does not make her drown. As grateful as she is for the enchanted pendant for saving her life, she can't say it's something she ever wants to feel again.

She sinks, disoriented both by the water and the headache that has returned in full force with that plank to the head. After a moment she realizes the river's current is tugging her towards open sea, away from the bridge at which she is supposed to meet Karliah. She begins to swim, only to find her legs tangled in the folds of her black robe. It is impossible to kick in them, and the undertow pulls her head over heels before her weight pulls her to the bottom of the river. She tries to walk back towards Windhelm, her feet sinking in the silt at the bottom of the river and getting caught on the robe's hem.

Michha wonders if there is a time limit on the robe's protection from the cold, because all though she does not feel it so strongly, her limbs seem unnaturally difficult to move, and her jaw is chattering so strongly that it hurts the muscles of her face. The bridge feels very, very far away, and she feels very, very heavy.

And then there is someone in the water with her, a lithe, shrouded figure swimming towards her with purpose.

"Karliah," Michha says, her mouth filling with water as the river takes any sound that might have come out.

But it is not Karliah, she knows this as the figure grabs ahold of her and her face is pressed against red cloth. It's her sister.

For a moment when their heads break the surface of the water, Michha does not remember how to breathe air. Gabriella does not even wait for Michha to stop coughing up all the riverwater in the lungs as she throws her onto the far shore and slaps her across the face, hard.

"You utter _dimwit_ ," Gabriella hisses, and even shivering and dripping wet like a drowned skeever she looks terrifyingly beautiful. "What was that?"

Without the water to wash it away, the cut on Michha's temple has begun to bleed freely, soaking her eyebrow with crimson and running freely into her eye. She rubs it away as she casts desperately for something to say, something that will quell her sister's anger.

"You... You got me out," Michha says. This is just too much for her poor head. First the poison, then the stray plank to the forehead, and now Gabriella's yelling.

"What, was I supposed to let you drown?"

"Yes," Michha says. Karliah's plan has spiraled out of control. Gabriella was always an wild card, an unpredictable variable, but even Michha did not expect this of her. "You shot me."

Gabriella opens and closes her mouth, lips a dark blue from the cold, but no words come out. Finally, she takes a step backward, looking away from Michha at the ground.

"And I regretted it as soon as I let the arrow fly. But that doesn't change the fact that you deserved it," her sister says, her eyes as hard as gemstones. "Go, get out of here. Get out of Skyrim and never come back, because I swear I won't let you live a second time, no matter how much... how much."

"Gabriella, I didn't betray you. You have to believe me," Michha pleads.

"I've known Astrid longer than I've known you, Michha. And she wouldn't lie. She does what's best for the Brotherhood."

"Then why are you letting me live now?" Michha asks. The Dunmer woman is deathly silent, still refusing to look at her. "Gabriella..."

"Because I owe you one for Vici. Now go!"

The willowy Dunmer woman reaches for her bow with that last syllable, and Michha scrambles to her frozen feet, swaying violently as her headache pulses. She is shivering so violently that she can hardly keep herself upright as she climbs up icy rocks and wades through snow in an effort to get away. She looks back at her fellow assassin, just once, and sees her standing like a statue at the shore across from Windhelm, her bow held loosely at her side. Water laps at her ankles, and the faint wisps of fog rising off the river wreathes her like a goddess, like the Tava her mother told legends of, matron of wind and sailors.

Michha half-raises her arm, intending to salute, because she cannot say goodbye like this. This can't be the end - not this cold, furious farewell. And she has a perfect view of the arrow that pierces Gabriella's neck clean through, in one side and out the other.

She is shivering so violently that she cannot even get enough breath in her lungs to scream as her sister falls to the ground like a ragdoll, dead even before her head slams on the cold stone and her body begins to slide down the slope into the river, leaving a bright red streak behind like a single tally mark. _I owe you one._


End file.
